Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1887-04-21

NJ.
body excepting himself has forgotten
the number. He never forgets any
thing. He has been three times speaker
of the house, his last election, two years ago,
giving him a national reputation. 1t was
peculiar, almost picturesque, election. Elijah
was the leader of the Independent party. The
party consisted of Elijah himself, solitary and
alone. There were seventy-five Republicans.
seventy-fve Democrats and Elijah. The Re
publicans didn't want him, nor yet the Dem
ocrats. They were SO earnest in their disln-
clination to take him that only after month
Of squirming were they able to swallow the
bitter dose. Then Elijah was elected. He
proved a great speaker. AS a parliamenta-
rian he is without a superior i'll the wild west.
In fact he has written q book on parliamen-
tary law. He was much a parllamen-
tartan that with him i'll the chair the
house couldn't do much Of anything he
didn't want it to do, and in some way managed
to do about everything lie did want. He was
speaker when the lamented Logan was re-
elected senator. and before his death Logan
testified that but for the old mans wonderful
control of the turbulent elements IN the
house there would have been disorder and
|UfUodshed. Though ceaselessly and phe-
nomenally active, Elijah always has time to
talk. He is a wonderful talker. You are
lucky if you get away from him in two hours.
He talks to some purpose, too, aud the time
flies. His memory is prodigious He will
tell you of incidents occurring when Chicago
was an Indian trading post, and never forgeta
name nor skip detail. Notwithstanding his
years, he can make political campaign with
the best Of them. Such mixing" among the
voters, such art, such riding night and day,
and speechifying and string pulling, as Elijah
is capable Of you never saw. Is he not
wonderful old man!
But Elijah NJ. Haines-they say the IN"
stands for Melchizedek-has a hobby, and
it is of this hobby wish to write. Elijahs
hobby is Indians, or "Injuns," as he nvarla-
bly calls them He has studied the red man
as others have studied geology, or physiology,
or psychology, or baseball He knows all
about Indians, has vast collection of Indian
curiosities, possesses probably the largest
library of Indian books there is, occasionally
travels to far off Indian territory or Montana
to visit and study real live red men, and is,
notwithstanding his other activities, writing
book on Indian names and occasionally de-
livering an Indian lecture before western col
leges and societies l never heard him lecture,
but once spent a Sunday at his beautiful
home on the shores of Lake Michigan, and
heard nothing but "Injunn from Saturday
night till Monday morning. During few
hours of fitful sumber dreamed of Indians,
only to be awakened shortly after daybreak
by war whoop from my host, calling me
once more to the council fire. During that
Sunday learned more of Indians than l ever
knew before-more, in fact, than | had sup
posed anybody knew.
"Why, not long ago." said Elijah, the
prophet and patron of the noble red man, "a
prominent officer of the United States army,
writing officially from frontier post, spoke
of the Indian language as a jargon.' Jar
gon, indeedl This officer, and millions Of
other people, don't appear to know that the
Injun language possesses regular organlza-
ton, that it is perfectly complete, exempt
from all confusion and irregularity, and
governed by fixed laws. 1t is particularly
rich in names for all objects of nature,
throughout the vegetable and animal king
dom. even down to the smallest object True,
the Injul had some fighty notions in select
ing his own rames, generally going to the
heavens for them. and bringing down such
examples as 'Au-be-tuh-g -ge Zhig, a center of
the sky; Ba-kwa-me- -au-she,' low pealing
thunder, and 'Wau-kun-nung,' the morning
star: but he had some sensible IDEAS concern
ing the diminutive, the feminine gender and
other phases of speech. For instance in some
groups the female gender was invariably
marked by the terminal syllables 'equa,' as
Baum wa-wa- -ge-zhig- woman of the
thunder cloud 1t was not neces-
sary to speak of an Injun woman
as madame or miss-her name in
itself indicated sex. And look at the SIM
plicity and charm of this method of adding
the diminutive, when we English speak
ing people want to pay one of the fair
sex compliment of calling her little rose
bud woman, we have to employ four words,
beginning with the little and winding up by
telling " ha, it is that's little-i. e., a woman.
But tie In'ian does not doSit that way. H
saws 'kenae,' meaning rosebud, adds 'ance,'
signifying little, and finishes with 'equa,'
woman - 'kenne-ance-equa' : little rosebud
woman. Isn't that neat. OF course it is, and
it is fair sample of the simplicity and form
running through the Injun's whole language,
which the army officer called jargon!
"Did you ever stop to think how much our
language is indebted to the Injun? He gave
us such names for animals as mink, alligator,
moose, raccoon, skunk, opossum, muskuks and
and prefix to muskrat; he gave us hackma-
tack, tamarack, mahogany, samp, succotash,
hominy, tobacco, potato, tomato. squash,
mango, pecan and persimmon. / remember
49, some time ago a learned paper